Tuesday, July 12, 2011

New York Times has reported that the powerful half brother of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai was shot in his house this morning at close range by a family bodyguard.

NYT report says,

Ahmad Wali Karzai, the provincial council chairman for Kandahar, who was the most powerful person in the province if not in southern Afghanistan, was killed by Sardar Mohammed, a former bodyguard of his older brother Qayyoum The bodyguard was killed almost immediately, according, to people close to Ahmad Wali Karzai .

The death of Ahmed Wali Karzai was confirmed by Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for Kandahar province, and Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior.

According to AP report, Ahmed Wali Karzai has been the reported target of multiple assassination attempts.

In May 2009, his motorcade was ambushed by insurgents firing rockets and machine guns in eastern Nangarhar province. One of his bodyguards was killed, but he was not harmed.

That attack came less than two months after four Taliban suicide bombers stormed Kandahar's provincial council office, killing 13 people in an assault that Ahmed Wali Karzai said was aimed at him. A Taliban spokesman said the attack targeted the general compound. The president's half brother had left the building a few minutes before that attack.

Wali Karzai has been described in various media reports as a "warlord" in involved in drug smuggling and as a paid asset of the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA).